


Cuppenauk

by dish_chan



Series: Magic from the Valley [1]
Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: American History, Gen, Wizarding Schools Around the World, Wizarding World
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-19
Updated: 2015-08-19
Packaged: 2018-04-15 15:28:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4611918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dish_chan/pseuds/dish_chan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A brief history of the circumstances behind the founding of the Shenandoah Academy for the Magically Gifted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cuppenauk

Before Europeans ruled from sea to shining sea, before man had truly begun to discover the worth of the ground beneath their boots, people lived among the tall, towering trees on both coasts, crouched in the wild grasses of plains, and learned the secrets of the land on which they lived. Each person understood they belonged to the land just as much, if not more so, than the land belonged to them. Each group of people had their own culture, their own structure of society, but each group, no matter if they were from a great Algonquian tribe in the east or a small Cocopah tribe in the southwest, the ones who often held the seats of great power were special. Some said they possessed gifts from the gods, others said they were the gods themselves parading in a human costume, yet others thought they were manifestations of nature and it's powers, but all of them could work _magic_.

 

In 1607 of a band of rough Englishmen found the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay and planted themselves at it, claiming the area (and a very far stretching piece of it) for God and country in the name of King James. These weren't the first outsiders these lands had seen, and they were far from the last. Pale and fragile in this new environment the men scoffed at the inhabitants of the land and a the whispers of magic that seemed to follow them. Blood and ships followed them up the James River until the explorers settled themselves in a place they called Jamestown.

In the following years, the colony waxed and waned with inhabitants, food, and all other manner of necessities a civilized European could think of. Yet, every year there would be two or three mysterious disappearances, often by the younger boys, and often attributed to local natives blood-thirsty and savage ways. And this may be, perhaps a few boys ended up places where they shouldn't have been and fell to those less inclined to have mercy than others. However, a few were purposeful in their disappearance. They had found themselves too often on the end of happenings that had no explanation: a miraculously mended pot that had previously been shattered into pieces; a friendly chat with a snake; a quartermaster's whip disappearing before the first blow struck; a mended pair of breeches when there was no thread to be found; the horse's shoe fixing itself in the middle of the field; or the vanishing of spilled ink on parchment. These young men had run away, in a fit of wisdom, and threw themselves at the mercy of the Powhatan Confederacy. Given sanctuary these boys grew up, learning how to control their gifts and how to guard their new home.

Soon though the group of pale skinned magicians began to grow to numbers that were too difficult to hide in the tall trees of the coastal plains, and so all but the oldest runaways were whisked away. Taken deeper into the still quiet continent, the older boys led the newer refugees with confidence, making hardly a sound as they moved through the hills after their older, wisened teachers. The newest clomped along with terrible grace, alerting any creature within a mile of their presence, whispering amongst themselves about the wondering grace of their predecessors and the excitement of adventure.

Hills gave way to mountains and then spread out below was a large valley and the teachers pointed to a seemingly random spot among the trees. This would be their new home, a place safe from the every growing groups of Englishmen, a place to live and learn about the powers God (or gods) had bestowed upon them all. As the years passed more pale English children heard whispers of others like them, who could weed a whole garden by pulling up one nettle, or who could shuck all ten ears of corn without touching a single one, and ran off to find them. These children with hair the color of sunshine or with eyes as clear as the river, would meet with children whom had always known that they were special. In the ebony eyes of those children, there would always be a twinkle of mischief, of security knowing their families were proud of their talents. The two groups twirled around children who had skin the color of gold, and hair as dark as night but with waves like the ocean few ever saw. All of these mismatched companions would end up at the same place; the random spot of trees, in a valley, between to lines of blue mountains.

 

After all, all are welcome at

 

the Shenandoah Academy

for the Magically Gifted

**Author's Note:**

> This series is based of a lengthy and ridiculously long conversation I had with a friend, and also a bit off of [these edits of international wizarding schools](http://asheathes.tumblr.com/tagged/wizarding-schools). 
> 
> I also have a barely there understanding of pre-Columbian/pre-English history of the native peoples of America - so any ignorance or mistakes are all mine and unintended to cause offense (so if I should change something, let me know). And I think the Iroquoian people might have had control of the Shenandoah Valley in the mid 1600s but . . . I'm not sure so ARTISTIC LICENSE is what we're going with until someone tells me otherwise. 
> 
> The name of the story "Cuppenauk" comes from the Powhatan word for 'gate,' and I thought it was rather fitting as this story is the gateway for many more. :) 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this.


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